


if a body meets a body

by dayspassquicker



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-13
Updated: 2011-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayspassquicker/pseuds/dayspassquicker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post "The Host".</p>
            </blockquote>





	if a body meets a body

He wakes up and starts to forget.

Nurse Ogawa discharges him while Beverly is still in surgery. He goes to the bridge to finish his shift, and when he comes back she’s gone. He sees her the next day at the morning briefing, but she sits at the other end of the conference table, and by then he can’t remember what it was he was going to say.

He’s supposed to keep track of any after-effects. Doctor’s orders. There are a few minor things here and there, and he logs them for the article she’s writing. Some things he erases before he sends the report to sickbay, like how his walk still feels wrong, or how he can’t quite figure out what to do with his hands when he talks.

Picard doesn’t call him ‘Number One’ for three days.

He schedules time with Deanna. She asks what it felt like, and he says: _I don’t remember_. It’s a lie, but she’s the first one to ask, and he’s been practicing the answer.

Data finds him everything Starfleet has on the Trill. He falls asleep with a PADD in his hand and dreams of all the wrong faces.

There are weekly check-ups for a while. Beverly does them all, her smile too bright and too hard. She talks a lot, like she’s afraid to stop. She tells him all about the paper, Neural Symbiosis and something. He doesn’t always listen, just leans back on the bio-bed and watches the insides of her wrists as she moves above him. Sometimes he remembers the taste of her skin, sudden and sharp, like a breath he can’t catch.

Every time he showers he notices the small scar below his navel, a faint puckering of flesh. He wonders if she left it there on purpose.


End file.
